You would consider buying expensive machinery to make home espresso or pay for the drink at coffee shops around your corner, but let me tell you that you don’t have to. There are three inexpensive ways to make a cup of espresso without any machine: an AeroPress, a French press, and a Moka pot.
How an AeroPress Makes Delicate Taste of Espresso?
AeroPress has many fans in the world, and it is perfect for making two shots of espresso. But if you want to have a single shot, it’s fine to reduce the amount of coffee and water in half.
With this method, you need some items as follows.
● AeroPress
● 4 other supplied items such as a Burr coffee grinder, Freshly roasted coffee beans, A tablespoon or others to scale the measurement of coffee, and a Stovetop kettle or electronic gooseneck kettle
When you are ready with the bean and equipment, it’s the right time to start making it!
- As for the beginning step, you need to heat one cup of water to 85°C or 185°F. For the amount of water, it should be 234 milliliters or eight ounces. Normally, the ideal temperature for coffee brewing is 96°C or 205°F. On the other hand, with the AeroPress, you can experiment anywhere between 85°C and 96°C (about 185°F and 205°F) until you find the right one.
- Grind your bean with a fine consistency until you receive two tablespoons (28.3 grams or 1 ounce).
- Insert a filter in AeroPress’s drain cap. Then, wash it with hot water.
- On the AeroPress, properly place the drain cap. After that, place it on a tumbler directly or in a coffee mug. Since you put extra force on it, it is better to use a sturdy cup.
- With the ground coffee, you can transfer it to AeroPress.
- Tamp down the coffee grounds to ensure it is tight and nice. If you have an espresso tamp, feel free to use it to tackle the chore. However, if you don’t have one, a cylindrical item that comes along with a flat bottom would be the right option, too, as long as it fits your AeroPress.
- Measure out 120 liters or 4 fluid ounces or a half cup of heated water. Then, pour it into AeroPress and give a quick stir.
- After stirring, wait 30 seconds. Then, plunge it with your hand weight. Here, you will feel very strong resistance. Anyway, keep pushing steadily, and remove the press from the beloved cup whenever the plunger has full depressed.
- With the last step, you can transfer the freshly brewed espresso to your lovely mug and enjoy!
When you clean it up, you can remove the drain cap from the AeroPress. After that, you can do it over a composter or trash can. Then, push the plunger down to get the ground pop out. So now you can wash everything with clean water and be ready to enjoy another cup.
How a French Press Makes Delicate Taste of Espresso?
If you are a strong coffee lover, you probably have a French press at home already. How about using it to make your favorite cup of espresso?
You would probably think of a big grinder; however, you can learn the way to make espresso in your reliable French press with some little tweaking and techniques.
● You need only a Fresh press and 4 other supplies just like AeroPress
Once you gather all these supplies and are ready to make espresso, you can follow these steps:
- Grind your coffee finely. Here, you can use espresso beans or super dark roast beans. Then for every cup of water, you will need 2 tablespoons (28.3 grams or one ounce) of beans.
- Fill the water into the kettle and heat to a boil. After that, set aside for 30 seconds before you brew.
- Now, you can add the coffee ground to your trusty French press. And if you would like to have a darker brew with a stronger flavor, add double the amount of coffee you normally use.
- You can use a hot kettle to add a few splashes of water to the French press. To release the coffee’s aromatics and oils, as well as bloom the coffee, just let it rest for a few seconds.
- For the rest of the water, add it to the French press. Here, you don’t have to stir it because it would be the reason for the suspension to fall out. As a result, it ruins the richness and extraction of the delicious coffee taste potentially.
- In this step, you can close the lid but not yet be plunged. Then, let the coffee steep for around 4 minutes. You can let it steep for one minute or two longer if you prefer to enjoy a stronger espresso. However, if you let it go for too long, it would be over-extraction to give you a dry and bitter taste.
- Then, you can press down on the plunger of your French press steadily, slowly, and evenly pressure. When it is a halfway plunge, lift the plunger to the top before finishing the press by plunging.
- At this moment, you can pour your tasty coffee into the serving pot. This step will stop the extraction process while reserving the flavor of your worked-hard coffee.
- Now it’s time to serve your French press-o! Cheers!
How a Moka Pot Makes Delicate Taste of Espresso?
The Moka Pot is a favorite around Latin America and Europe, and it has huge fans around the world. Even though it is not designed for espresso makers, we can use it to make espresso with a marvel of Italian engineering.
If you are wondering how to make it, let’s get ready with these items.
● Moka pot and 4 other supplied items just like AeroPress.
When you are ready to collect beans and gear, it’s time to make your favorite drink with the Moka team.
- After measuring, you can grind 4 to 4 with a half teaspoon of coffee, around 20-22 grams or 0.71-0.78 ounces. The same as the previous method, you have to grind coffee to a very fine texture of caster sugar.
- Now, add the water to the bottom part of your Moka pot until it reaches the fill line. To avoid getting the negative effects on the taste and waterlogging the drink, do not give an extra of filling the reservoir.
- Here, you add the ground coffee to the Moke pot’s filter basket.
- Attach the spouted top of the Moka pot.
- On the stovetop burner, place the Moka pot over there with medium heat. Regarding this process, you will notice when the water in the lower chamber heats, it will boil. At the same time, a stream of coffee will be pushed due to pressure. This happens through a filter as well as the upper chamber.
- Enjoy the hissing sound!
- Before the coffee is made completely, it will appear the foam of hazel brown in just seconds. Once there is a full coffee on top of the Moka, take it away from the burner.
- Give a quick stir for the coffee in the upper chamber with a small spoon.
- Finally, you can enjoy your homemade espresso happily!
Final Thoughts
It is okay not to have a fancy machine or overprice one to wake up your morning, but you have standards. You can learn how to make a cup of coffee espresso quickly and easily every day with the brewing equipment, as these three methods give you a quality taste.
Reference
- How to Make Espresso Without An Espresso Machine [Source]